This Week in KC History
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The Greatest Pitcher Ever
July 7, 1906: Leroy "Satchel" Paige, one of baseball's finest pitchers, was most likely born on July 7, 1906. While Paige believed this date to be correct, poorly kept records left his exact birth year and date unclear. By…
Burnt End
August 5, 1901: In 1887, a new main pavilion for Kansas City's annual industrial exposition opened to throngs of visitors, including President Grover Cleveland. Dubbed "the Crystal Palace" the building enclosed more than 740,000…
Whittaker's Chambers
February 22, 1901: Future Supreme Court justice Charles Evans Whittaker was born near Troy, Kansas. As a young adult, he moved to Kansas City, where he earned a degree from the Kansas City School of Law and then went on to…
Last Night at the Opera House
January 31, 1901: The Coates Opera House, which was Kansas City’s original first-class theater, met a fate common among nineteenth-century theaters when it burned to the ground. Boiler rooms for heating, hot gas or electric stage…
Ringing in the New
December 31, 1900: With the temperature hovering near zero degrees, some 15,000 people gathered in Kansas City's Convention Hall to welcome the beginning of the 20th century. The revelers were in an optimistic, even jubilant mood…
Prelude in KC
November 25, 1896: Virgil Thomson, a future composer and music critic, was born in Kansas City, Missouri. Although he would go on to live much of his life in New York and Paris, and brush elbows with world-renowned musicians and…
Cool Operator
August 27, 1896: Elmer F. Pierson, who, with brother John, would go on to found the Vendo company and dominate the world's soft drink vending machine industry, was born. In addition to its achievements in the vending industry,…
Drawn from the Heartland
April 15, 1889: Thomas Hart Benton, future painter and a leader of the regionalist movement in American art during the 1930s, was born in Neosho, Missouri. After showing a strong interest in art as a youth, he aggressively…
The Show Must Go On
October 26, 1887: The Warder Grand Theater prepared for its glorious debut. The product of George Woodward Warder’s ambition and financing, it was the third theater in Kansas City after the Coates Opera House and Gilliss Theater…
We Play the Pallas
October 13, 1887: A new Kansas City tradition emerged with the first Priests of Pallas parade. President Grover Cleveland and his new bride, Frances, were on hand to witness the spectacle that would begin after nightfall. A crowd…